The present invention relates generally to the field of erasing data on tape using a tape drives, and more particularly to relatively long erasures of taped data made by tape drives.
Some commercial tape drives and/or enterprise tape drives have a function called RWW (Read While Write). The RWW function checks for errors in written data using a read head immediately after the data is written. This is carried out with a structure having a write head that writes data on a tape medium and a read head that reads data written on the tape medium, disposed side by side with each other. If an error is found in this check, proper data is read from a data buffer and rewritten. In general, a write head and a read head are physically distinct from each other, and a tape drive writes data while moving a tape medium back and forth. A head structure supporting RWW typically includes read heads disposed on both sides of a write head.